While the company name says, “Disposal,”
Bryce Isaacson, vice president of sales and marketing for Western
Disposal noted, “We are as much a recycling company as a trash
company. Material that used to be in the trash is now recycled.”

Isaacson has been with the company for 20 years. “It’s forever
changing,” he said. “It is a very dynamic business.” Western Disposal
got its start in the gravel business with just one truck, and it
has evolved into one of the largest independent trash haulers in
Colorado.

“We’re equally involved in residential as in business,” Isaacson
said. The company services about 37,000 residential customers and
6,000 business customers in Boulder and Broomfield counties. He
said that Western Disposal is the only independent trash hauler
in the area that uses automated carts for recycling, while the
others rely on recycling bins and two-man teams on the trucks.

The City of Boulder, Colorado, one area where Western Disposal
operates, recently changed its requirements as far as recycling
construction and demolition (C&D) material. “Colorado has one
of the lowest average disposal rates in the nation,” Isaacson explained,
which meant there was no financial incentive for recycling the
C&D material. “We’ve been working with the people who have
wanted to do it, but now it’s become mandatory. Now we’re going
to satisfy the market need.”

Another change is the planned shift to single-stream recycling
“as soon as the plant is ready to take it,” Isaacson said. The
plan is to begin converting customers’ pickups to single-stream
beginning in May, and have the process complete by October. “Everything
is waiting for the plant.” But that’s not all. “We’ll be rolling
out curbside compostables in the City of Boulder,” Isaacson said.

Western Disposal composts wood waste and household yard waste,
processes commercial cardboard and paper, and accepts residential
hazardous waste at its facility. The company is also involved in
“spring clean-ups” for residents. Isaacson said that about 5 tons
of cardboard a day is sorted from the trash, along with metal and
concrete, all destined for recycling.

It’s not all about making money, though. Western Disposal leases
two acres of land for $1 per month to a company called Resource
Resource, which resells construction materials like doors, windows,
flooring, brick, stone, light fixtures, pavers, doorknobs, wood
beams and some appliances. Resource Resource will also plane and
cut timbers for customers.

Recently, Western Disposal got involved with Impact on Education,
which organizes a program called Crayons to Calculators. That program
provides backpacks and school supplies to local underprivileged
children. Isaacson explained that the backpacks are different for
each grade, filled with supplies based on school needs at that
level.

The company donated $25,000 to Crayons to Calculators, then offered
a matching employee grant for another $5,000. In total, the company
and its employees donated $46,597, which will fill more than 850
backpacks.

For fundraising, Western Disposal employees divided into five teams
to compete to see which team would raise the most money. As added
incentive, the company offered a $1,000 prize to the winning team.
Even vendors got involved, donating tickets to sporting events,
which were raffled off to raise money.

Isaacson said one of the things he’s most proud of at Western Disposal
is “our name and our reputation. If we screw up, we bend over backward
to fix it.” Not only does the company respond to customers’ calls
about problems, it invites feedback by sending out surveys every
month “and we follow up on all the negative comments.”

He credited the longtime employees and the management team with
making the company what it is. “We are forever on the forefront
of how to be a better company.” And now, a new focus is on “trying
to get more recognition for the environmental side of what we do
– to get more visibility for what we do that people don’t know
about.”